How Iranian Propaganda Uses AI to Fake Non-Existent Victories

Not only that drones e ballistic missiles. In the guerra which is inflaming the Middle East betweenIranThe United States e Israelthe most treacherous front line runs along network cables and social media feeds. A new and detailed report by NewsGuard reveals an unprecedented escalation in the campaign misinformation orchestrated by state media in Tehranwhich to bridge the gap between the reality of the field and domestic narratives is massively resorting toartificial intelligence and there video games.

Since the beginning of the military operations on February 28, the machine of Iranian propaganda he sped up the revs. NewsGuard has identified at least 18 patently false statements released by official Iranian sources in a few days, compared to the five detected in the previous two weeks. The most striking case concerns the Tehran Times.

The deceptions revealed by a cyber warfare analyst

The state newspaper released a satellite image on statunitense radar at the Al-Udeid base, Qatar. The deception was revealed by the analyst of cyber warfare Tal Hagin, who noticed a trivial but decisive detail: in the “post-attack” image, the cars in the base parking lot were in exactly the same position as in the original Google Earth photo from February 2025. A gross mistake by AI manipulation which transformed a routine parking lot into a fictional battlefield.

But the creativity of propaganda it doesn’t stop there. According to the website of fact-checking Factnameheven footage from the Arma 3 military video game to simulate firefightsa technique already seen in other conflicts but used here with systematic frequency. The discrepancy between the official bulletins and the reality of the facts it has become abysmal. If these fake news they struggle to convince the international observer, their primary objective remains the internal population.

Internet blocking and internal propaganda

Il Iranian government he imposed what Cloudflare defines a “almost total blockade” of the network: on February 28th the internet traffic it fell by 98%. In this digital isolationThe Iranians they only have access to National Information Network or to controlled apps like Bale. Without terms of comparison with i foreign mediathe narratives of “glorious victories” become the only possible reality for millions of citizens. “With limited access to foreign media, Iranians are forced to inform themselves through state broadcasterswhich they continue to spread distorted statements to keep morale high,” NewsGuard notes in its report.

The alliance with Russia and the challenge of AI

The Iranian propaganda is finding unexpected shores too Mosca. The report highlights how the Russia is relaunching some of these fake news to indirectly strike theUkraine. In a informative short circuitRussian sources claimed that Iranian missiles they would have destroyed “Ukrainian military bases in Dubai”, a geographically and militarily senseless statement, but useful to create informational chaos among them Western allies. While the social platforms like X they struggle to stem i manipulated content (con post fake which reach over 4 million views in a few minutes), the challenge shifts to the ability of analysts to trace the origin of AI-generated content.